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From: animal@isis.rice.edu (Carl Rosene)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Battle of Britain kill ratios
Message-ID: <11235@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 8 Nov 89 04:41:03 GMT
References: <11162@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Rice University, Houston
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From: animal@isis.rice.edu (Carl Rosene)

In article <11162@cbnews.ATT.COM> Brian Ross (bxr307@coombs.anu.oz) writes:
>
>
>The biggest problem in trying to equate the different rate of 
>kills between the two sides in the war is the different methods 
>each had of recording kills.  The Germans were much more lax 
>about this and were willing to take the pilots word on the 
>matter...
>The British on the other hand 
>has a very strict system where by every "kill" had to be 
>witnessed by at least one other observer, either in the air and 
>more preferrably on the ground...

Actually, as has already been discussed on *this* newsgroup, and according
to all the reading I've done(e.g. Lee Deighton's "Fighter"), I am 
afraid Brian has this 180 degrees backward. Deighton discusses this
at length. In order to compile his statistics he did not rely
soley on RAF statistics of the time which
often counted a single or no kill many times, but supplemented it with the
numbers of downed German planes recorded by the civil defense forces who, 
after all, were able to just walk up and count them at their leisure.
The British claims were way off. So were German claims. The difference 
is that the Germans knew they were lying. The RAF was in fantasy land.

>     This is why you have such big discrepancies in the number of 
>kills accorded British and German Aces.  You have German aces 
>with kills in the hundreds and the best the British could produce 
>was in the tens.  

I think it would be very instructive to look at the length of careers of
the aces. At the time of the Battle of Britain,  RAF policy
dictated that no squadron leader could be over 26. 
On the other hand, the commanders of entire German bomber and fighter 
groups flew on combat missions. Some of *them* rembered flying in the
previous war with Britain. And at least one(don't ask me for the name)
was an Ace in both. 

Additional factors include the lack of training of RAF fighter pilots
at the time of BoB. when a lot of targets were in the air for A German
to record his kills, the fact that the Germans were fighting on two
fronts, allowing for a lot more missions, and the difference in relief
policies of squadrons in combat. But I am sure there will be plenty
more expert than I to elaborate on these.

Carl Rosene
Rice University-Computer Science Dept.